re: Clayton Kershaw cumulative regular season stats since July 24th, 2012

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the rep he has

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he has this rep because of two games

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No he has it because of more than just two games

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not really. Take away any one of those 2 meltdowns and have a 3 run, 6/7 inning game and we aren't having this conversation. If game 1 of the 2014 NLDS was like game 1 in 2015, the Dodgers win the game, possibly win the series, and people just shrug their shoulders at it all

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he was the best pitcher for them

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and he wasn't in the top 2 or 3 of our rotation and only started one game in all of the 2009 playoffs. He just didn't have a major role on our team even if he pitched well

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You can claim he started the year as the #3

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I mean he was. He was absolutely the best pitcher on the staff, but he wasn't the pitcher we were going to go to when we needed a win. If we are down 3-1 in 2013 and Kershaw is on 5 days rest, he's going to go. Not Vincent Padilla like in 2009

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don't care where you start it is about how you finish

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and Kershaw finished like he was a mid of the rotation pitcher. That was his role at that time. Kershaw wouldn't have started a one game playoff in 2009 like Arrieta did last year.

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finished with the lowest ERA so no he did not finish like a mid-rotation pitcher

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you know what I meant when I said that

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He started game 2 vs the Cardinals and then started game 1 vs Phillies in the NLCS.

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right. We didnt try to align our rotation so Kershaw would pitch game 1, like we would do now, and then we passed on him in an elimination game when he was on a full 5 days rest

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however, he was their best pitcher that season

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I have said that multiple times, but for whatever reason that wasn't his role

Eta: I take my comment about rotation alignment back. I remember that we had the division clinched by our final series against the Rockies but we hadn't

Exactly the Dodgers may not have thought of him as the #1 and did not put that pressure on him but he was the staff ace that season. The numbers back that up.
He would have have pitched had the Dodgers gone further and been a significant piece.

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ut the Dodgers didn't treat him like such

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Yet they treated him like he was an important piece, hence starting game 1 of the LCS. So obviously the Dodgers treated him like an ace even if they didn't give him game one over Wolf. The whole game 1 thing is BS really. As we've seen pitchers who were not considered the "ace" step up and become the ace over the course of the year and playoffs. The fact is he was the best pitcher and the Dodgers had enough faith in him to start him in a game 1 of a championship series when they could have turned to an established vet.

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if this was true, he would have started game 5

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He was 20 at the time, I have no issue with them not running him in game 5 (which he did see action and he struggled just as in game 1) That reminds me of the Yankees in 04 vs Boston. Rather than putting Hernandez in they turned to their game 3 starter in Brown. The Dodgers went with a older player and pitched Kershaw early in the game to keep the score close. It did not happen, that doesn't mean they didn't trust him. They obviously did starting him in G1.

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ut not enough faith to play him in an elimination game when he was on a full 5 days rest

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again not relevant for me, they had faith in him. He struggled in game 1 and went with experience in a tight situation. He came in to keep the game close and could not do that.


Kershaw has a rep as a pitcher who can not do it in the postseason. This is because his regular season has been so dominant that he has not carried that over into the postseason. Until he has a run like Bumgarner he won't drop this rep. He needs a dominating postseason without a blow up which he has not had yet. 6 innings and 3 earned runs is not a Kershaw performance and not what teams expect from their #1 in the postseason.

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He was 20 at the time,

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my exact point. He was 20 at the time and was not asked to carry the team like he is now. I could care less about how he played in 2008 or 2009 when it was such a drastically different situation then as it is now

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He struggled in game 1

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and he did OK in the LDS. Them being scared after one game points to how they maybe didn't really trust him to put the team on his back like they do now

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6 innings and 3 earned runs is not a Kershaw performance and not what teams expect from their #1 in the postseason

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I mean frick. One of those came 100 pitches into him on short rest after he was getting babipd and another came from when the bullpen couldn't get a third out. His last two 3 ER games in the playoffs are the exact definition of shite happens

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Then we should only look at Bumgarner and his 2014 performance because in the previous years he was young and they didn't trust him enough.

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I have already said that I acknowledge that bumgarner was young and that he was even coming out in relief at that point when I actually went to look at it. So yea, I can say whatever to his play in 2010 and 2012

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A starter should not worry about they bullpen getting the 3rd out. They should be performing,

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which he was. He had given up 1 run when he was brought out. I put that game on mattingly more than anything because he should have gone to kenley

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which is something he has not done as well during the playoffs compared to the regular season

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which I do ultimately agree with because of his two meltdowns, but he's basically been that outside of his two meltdowns. The worst we can say is that he gave up 3 runs twice when both times were the prime definition of shite happens in baseball.